Fast rubber

By Lauren Bartlett, October 2, 2007 @ 8:22 pm

Apparently, not all our textile innovation went into the All Blacks’ World Cup jumper. Orca has designed the world’s first breathable wetsuit, which expels heat and moisture while keeping the ocean at bay. “We had a lot of triathletes coming to us asking, ‘Is there any way you can make cooler wetsuits’, so we tried to work out a way to make it happen,” say Simon Kenny of Orca.

Orca founder Scott Unsworth then went to Japanese neoprene maker Yamamoto which began work on research and development with the help of Orca’s Hong Kong-based designer, Julian Cosgrave. The result? Two completely new types of neoprene. The orange AirRelease neoprene is used around the athletes’ active armpits, while the black AirLite panel contains air pockets to help keep the likes of Kiwi ironman Cameron Brown 25 percent more buoyant and in prime swimming position. The new materials are exclusive to Orca for the next four years and by then, Unsworth reckons, they’ll be ready to introduce their Next Big Thing.